Ford's Supreme Court Legacy

One of President Ford's most enduring legacies was his nomination of Justice John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court.

Now in his fourth decade on the court, Stevens is a maverick thinker who has proven to be surprisingly liberal and has kept the court from moving further to the right.

In a tribute last year, Ford praised the independent Stevens and said he was "prepared to allow history's judgment of my term in office" to rest exclusively on the nomination.

He said he agreed with Stevens' views on the separation of church and state, and on requiring rigorous procedural safeguards for criminal defendants.

Ford nominated Stevens to the Supreme Court in 1975, when he was a Chicago-based federal appeals court judge, to replace liberal giant William O. Douglas.

Douglas had suffered a debilitating stroke the year before, and he turned in his resignation letter to Ford the next year with great reluctance -- and only after concerned colleagues on the court had urged him to do so.

Ford vs. Douglas

Ironically, Ford had tried to get Douglas off the court five years earlier, when as House minority leader, he led the call for Douglas' impeachment, largely because of his liberal ideology and sensational personal life.

Douglas had been raising eyebrows in Washington for years, and he'd just married his fourth wife, who was 44 years his junior.

Douglas' retirement was a chance for historic change on the court, because Ford could replace him with a solid conservative. He instead tapped Stevens at the urging of his attorney general, former University of Chicago Law School dean Ed Levi.

At the time, other Justice Department officials had been pushing a different nominee: a young Robert Bork, who had been President Nixon's solicitor general and had represented the United States in the Supreme Court.

But Bork was seen as too controversial in those post-Watergate years, having carried out Nixon's orders to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox.

The Stevens Choice

Stevens was above reproach. He had even been counsel to a special commission that had investigated ethics complaints against members of the Illinois Supreme Court. Stevens has said he believes that work caught the attention of administration officials, who were looking for a nominee with sterling credentials and no ethical problems.

Ford's decision to nominate Stevens over better-known conservative favorites like Bork shaped the direction of the closely divided court -- and, by extension, the country. Stevens has sided with a five-bloc liberal majority to reject abortion regulations, uphold affirmative action programs, denounce religion in the public sphere, and demand greater protections for criminal defendants.

Stevens' Fingerprint on the Court

Stevens also wrote a bitter dissent in Bush vs. Gore, harshly criticizing the court's decision to stop the Florida recount in the contested 2000 presidential race. Stevens said he feared the decision, which handed the presidency to George W. Bush, had damaged the court and undermined the public's confidence in it.

At 86, Stevens is now the oldest member of the court, and observers have speculated for years that he is on the verge of retirement. His retirement would set off an enormous battle, because it would give President Bush another opportunity to put a more conservative stamp on the court.